valentine’s letterpress poster

You may recognize this if you follow me on Twitter – it is a larger than life original X piece of wood type. Antique, patina and all around gorgeous, I acquired this baby on eBay back in 2001 along with it’s soulmate O. They are so large in fact, that they extend beyond the press bed (and print area). So to work this baby out – we had to shorten our dead area (usually there is a dead bar at the front of the press which keeps the grippers from hitting the printed form and damaging not only the grippers but the type as well). To shorten our dead area we had to be extra cautious, and a small piece of furniture was inserted in replacement of the dead bar (see that wood block on the press? that’s called furniture in printer’s …